August 29, 2014

Some Friday Randoms

Sophie Funnies of the day:

Me- Sophie, what are you doing over there?
S- Paying bills!

S- Mommy, should we do tummy time on the bed?
Me- You mean take a nap?


Olivia's Friday:
-She still cried (sobbed...) when we dropped Sophie off at preschool. She wants to go and be a big girl so badly! We had our own school time at home.
-She successfully used the toilet twice!
-My potty reward chocolates are inferior to grandpa's "pocket chocate"

Allison's Friday:
- She slept 6 hours in a row! Too bad Evie didn't.
-She is really starting to coo. It's adorable.
-She loves to play "sit up" (I hold her hands and pull her to sitting)

Evie's Friday:
- this girl LOVES to eat! She's already had 2 more feedings today than Alli.
- She has also thoroughly enjoyed her naps. I guess all that eating wears you out!
- She's also smiling and enjoys playing. She doesn't coo quite as much as Alli. No problem there :-)

My Randoms:
- It's reaaaally easy to overspend if you're a. Tired, b. Not paying attention c. Not paying attention. Oops.
- I reaaaaaally like paying as many bills as possible before the beginning of the month. Today was bill pay day. Woo.
- I know it's time to go grocery shopping because we have used EVERY SINGLE plastic grocery bag in the entire house. Seriously. Gone. I'll need to shop tonight so I can empty all the trash cans tomorrow.
- I'm really looking forward to being back on a regular menu, having a set routine and doing more cooking at home.

August 26, 2014

Sunday & Monday

Just a quick reminder, this blog has turned into a thought journal. May not be the most exciting thing for other people to read, but it is helping me be better about recording things.

Sunday we were able to get out the door and get parents church in Pleasant Grove early. We were even the first ones there! Even though we are about 10 minutes early, their chapel was already pretty full and we weren't able to save many seats. Bryan and My we're not too far behind us. The blessing was lovely and sacrament was very nice. Susan flew in Saturday evening and was also able to be there. After church, we owe it back to errands house, including the whole Robinson clan. I had muffins and juice and fruit and Raible to visit for a while. We put the median and little kids down for a nap after taking several pictures. As usual, trying to put pictures together with so many small children was somewhat like herding cats. I haven't seen them yet, but I'm sure there are some pretty darn funny pictures!

It really was a very nice day. It was nice having some other people around you are interested in holding babies so I could do something wild like, go to the bathroom without listening to a baby cry. The babies have hit another growth spurt and ate and ate and ate and ate all day. Craig tells me a full asleep while feeding one of the babies. I don't know who I was feeding or when I fell asleep but I just know I felt better when I woke up! because we have so many birthdays in August, that evening we celebrated dad's and Mys birthday. Of course in true Nasson style, we had amazing delicious grilled salmon, bugs and rice, Erins green beans and bacon, steamed broccoli, some delicious bread, fruit, and yummy lemonade. For dessert, Erin and mom made dad a German chocolate cake complete with coconut, and a big cheesecake with raspberry sauce. Both were delicious of course!


During the day, Craig was able to sit down and work on some family history things with dad and aunt Susan. There's been some mystery surrounding my grandpas mom and her story. She was adopted as a baby and has two names. It would seem they were able to clear up some of that as well as learn about and record some other things about dad's family. I hope that next time they are visiting, which will be in October, we can do some more and maybe even find a few more names to take to the temple.

We've had an off a lot of thunderstorms the last several days. It was pretty exciting driving home Sunday night seeing all of the lightning hearing the thunder. We got home we had several storms that were right over us. Lots of windows rattling thunder in the sky lighting lightning.

Mom, dad, and Andrew, left Monday. We decided we should go back to Pleasant Grove to say goodbye to them on Monday. Mondays are usually busy day and yesterday was really no different. So we went up to say goodbye and spend a few more minutes with the family. We left errands at about 1230 and headed to Sophie's preschool open house in Springville. We found out the daughter of a couple of my friends is going to be in her class. Sophie will be starting preschool tomorrow Wednesday with two friends. She is extremely excited to be going to school! After the open house, we hurried home to try to let the gross rest a little before we had to go to colorguard. We were home  for a grand total of 55 minutes before we needed to leave. In that time the girls were able to get a snack and lay down and rest while they watch Daniel Tiger and I was able to get the rest of the card T-shirts iron ons finished. Rehearsal went fairly well. We need to be holding the students more responsible but they are getting better every day. Sophie and Olivia were so exhausted that Olivia crashed on the blanket in the middle of rehearsal!

I had a follow-up doctor appointment in Provo late last night and so we went straight from colorguard there. Craig was thrilled, as that meant he got to have "taco truck "for dinner. The taco truck is actually a freestanding little walk up restaurant that sells amazing Mexican food.

It's now 822 Tuesday morning, the big girls are up, babies have been eating while I've been recording this, Craig is walking to his car at the high school, and we have a little friend coming over to play in about 45 minutes. Tootles!
It's Friday again. I have been so busy... Feeding babies! We've hit another growth spurt and we spent a massive chunk of the day sitting in bed feeding/eating. By some miracle, I was still able to get a number of things done, including some Sophie school time and reading books. Mom, dad & Andrew came over for dinner and a visit. We walked to the pharmacy together for dessert (mmm... Ice cream!) and mom found some adorable baby bracelets for all the new babies. Emma will wear hers on her blessing day.

Sophie has been quite sick the last couple days. I suspected she might have a UTI but seriously underestimated the severity until Wednesday afternoon she went from being happy and active to extremely hot, super tired and in a lot of pain. Tia came over to stay with her while I went to teach and Craig was on his way home. By the time I got home, her fever had hit 102. something and she didn't want to sit up or walk. We took her to the kids InstaCare in Springville. After some struggles to get a sample, the doc told us she had "a raging bladder infection."  Poor gi spent all day Thursday in my bed. Still not wanting to sit up or walk to the bathroom or eat much.

Wednesday morning we had the twins 2 month well check, too. They're still little! Allison is 9 pounds even and Evelyn is 9 pounds 1 ounce. 22 and 22.5 inches. They've just barely outgrown their newborn clothes and are moving into 0-3. With this growth spurt, it'll be interesting to see how long they wear 0-3s.

Tuesday was a "do all the things" day. I like those. Schedule was kept and that's always a good thing. We also took Jack & Tia to Sophie's preschool to see if it's a place he'd like to go. It is and Sophie is so excited to have Jack going to preschool with her!

Sunday was the babies blessing day. I need to pull out the computer to write about that and add pictures.

Today, which is now Saturday as I finish this, has been good but busy. Craig went golfing with dad, grant & Bryan at East Bay. Andrew spent the night with us last night and he slept in until close to 11:00. We met up with the golfers around 1:00 for birthday lunch at Tucanos. One major perk to nursing twins: the ability to eat places like that with very little guilt! The day was spent painting the house, having the girls take naps, getting things ready to be away from home all day Sunday. Even though we were just planning to go to Pleasant Grove, it did take quite a lot of planning and packing. The bees knees diapers clothes wipes heating supplies and the big girls needed clothes diapers wipes and feeding supplies. I needed my pump and change clothes and Craig would also need a change of clothes and things. Getting 4 kids 3.5 & under cleaned, fed, dressed, hair fixed and out the door by 8:10 to be to church 45 minutes away is no small feat!

August 15, 2014

Friday thoughts... And a whine

Never order from Algy Team unless you don't need your items for 6 months. I order plain t shirts from them the end of July and paid for 3-6 day shipping. I got an email several days later saying they'd ship " on or around" August 8th. I got a shipping confirmation today, August 15th and an estimated delivery of August 22. A month after ordering. NEVER  ordering from them again.

Homemade naan is delicious. Thought I might need to share that again, just in case I didn't make that clear before.

It's awesome getting everything on your list and then some done. Empty dishwasher, empty washer & dryer, clean rooms... WHY IS THE KITCHEN STILL DIRTY?! I just don't get it. Grumble.

Olivia took herself to the toilet again. If this girl potty trains herself, she will be the favorite child indefinitely.

Sophie still needs naps. For the safety of her little behind and for my sanity. The grumpy "I'm not tired!" afternoons continue. Someday we'll move her to another room.

Happy Birthday, Craig!!

Happy 19th birthday, Craig!

Thursday was a surprisingly busy day starting with Craig having to be to work around 8 o'clock. Today also happened to be the last morning of summer band. All of this made for a fairly early and somewhat busy morning. Craig got the big girls up and in the car, I got the twins ready and we all took off. Most exciting little tidbit of our morning? Olivia deciding that going potty on the big girl potty is a pretty good idea. Let's hope it keeps up! Guard has been pretty good this summer. I have a team of eight with six being returning members. The two new girls are learning quickly and doing a great job. We had been camp last week and that was fairly successful as well. If things keep going the way they are, I think we're going to have a particularly great season. I might even say the best since starting to teach in Utah County.

After guard was over, I loaded up all four girls and we headed straight home. Sophie really really really wanted to make a birthday cake and cupcakes-don't forget the cupcakes!-for Craig for his birthday. We needed to work fast making the cupcakes and getting the girls bathed and me showered so that we could get to Craig by 12 o'clock for his birthday lunch. I am going to brag a little and say I'm pretty darn impressed with how much I got done in that hour and a half. 26 inch cakes, 12 cupcakes, all of the decorating things I would need to frost it once we got to his work packed, diaper bag packed, two girls bathed, showered, two babies dressed and ready for their lunch date, a load of dishes started, talked to a guard mom about some guard business, emptied the garbage and got a load of laundry going. We even got to kneaders, where we were having lunch, on time. Lunch was delightful with Craigs parents. Then we went to Ancestry and Sophie and Olivia were able to share the cupcakes with Craig's coworkers they had helped make.

When we got home, I had Sophie rest in my room and they said Olivia upstairs for her nap. Because Craig has some people coming to work on the house in the afternoon, those notes were way too short. Luckily after the workers left, both girls laid down and took another rest before aunt Becky & Uncle Adam came to play. They offered to play with the girls so I could take Craig out for his birthday. It was awesome being able to go out to eat and spend some quiet time together. Craig chose going to Ohana Grill- a Hawaiian restaurant in Springville- for dinner. He ordered a loco moco, chicken katsu, poke and otai for us to share. He was a happy boy. :-)

To top off the night, when we got home we were informed Olivia had taken herself to the potty again all by herself. I think potty training part deux has commenced in the Nasterson household!

Wednesday

Not a terribly exciting day to read about but one of those where you still feel pretty accomplished by bed time. Everything on "the list" was accomplished, Sophie was able to name and identify all of the letters, several numbers and happily did 3 workbook pages, laundry got done, dishes were done (...over and over), garbage cans emptied, diapers restocked, a show watched while snuggling the girls and nobody got hurt, sick or in huge trouble for destroying their room during nap time!

The evening was even more fun, though. Ancestry does a couple parties a year and for the summer party, they rented 7 Peaks for the evening. Yummy catered dinner, a movie on a giant inflatable screen complete with popcorn and candy, and, of course, lots of water fun! Olivia was most content when she was able to just wander around & do her own thing in the kiddie pool area. Sophie, on the other hand, loved the big slides. She wanted to ride on all of the tube runs, which she went on about 6 times between Craig and I. We also went on the mat slide a couple times and she loved that! The wave pool, lazy river, bigger kid play area with slides, and waterfall pool were also favorites. It was so much fun getting to take her on her own on these little adventures without any of the other girls. Little miss Olivia couldn't have been happier when we put her in her pjs and on the camping chair with a blanket. Maybe next year she'll be more interested in the pool. If not, that's cool, too :-)

Tuesday Adventures: homemade butter & naan

We love naan, homemade jam & butter. Last Fall, Aunt Joyce taught us to make and can tomatoes, juice and jams/jellies so since then, we've been making our own items from scratch. Craig did a batch of peach and a batch of strawberry this week since berries are at their least expensive right now. A few months ago, I came across a homeschool post about making butter. I thought it'd be fun to do with Sophie & Olivia as a science activity. We discovered two things: the vitamix wasn't the greatest tool for the job as it unnecessarily complicated the process (kitchenaid with the wisk attacemt was perfect)  and it's cheaper to make rather than buy ready-made butter. So while at the grocery store today, I grabbed a quart of great value heavy cream. Right before sitting down to feed the twins, I dumped 3/4 of the cream in my kitchenaid bowl, covered the whole thing with a towel- very important if you don't want buttermilk all over your kitchen, turned it on to medium and walked away. When the babies were done eating, I strained the buttermilk and stuffed the butter in a pint jar and that's it. My mom says you can save time oroney but rarely both. I think we come fairly close to both here as the active time I'm involved is minimal. Craig's only real concern was how to measure the butter. Problem solved! We bought a silicon mold from ikea some time ago for freezing baby food portions in 1T squares. Next time, I'll just slightly warm the fresh butter and portion it like the baby food.

My final kitchen adventure of the evening involved an insanely easy dough recipe, cast iron skillet and a stack of homemade naan. This one was more time consuming with letting the yeast feed, dough rise etc. but the active time wasn't bad. It was kind of messy rolling it out until I wised up and rembered we have a small, hand crank pasta roller. Once I was able to get the thickness consistent, it was fast, tidier and fun. Our pesto pizzas tasted great on them!

Pictures later when I get my laptop out :-)

August 11, 2014

Mondays...

Today is not a good day. I've had inconsolable babies, a 3 year old who is being naughty just to be naughty and then turning around and being as sweet as can be and a 2 year old who is doing her best impression of a tornado in a trailer park. Not happy, Bob. (How many more movie references can I throw out there?) I thought things had started so well. In about15 minutes I was able to get several of my "daily" list items done. The big girls had a hot breakfast, we started our school time with Sophie and then I sat down to feed a baby and read to everyone. I blame Amelia Bedelia. This has to be her fault somehow.

It's now 11:30 and I'm still in my night attire, unbrushed hair & teeth, rocking one baby while listening to another cry and all I can think of is how jealous I am of Craig. He gets to leave every morning and do what he loves, spend time with adults, eat his (warm) lunch in one sitting without interruptions or little people sticking their fingers in it, and then comes home to a clean house, clean clothes, dinner and satisfaction from what he's accomplished at work. I didn't like being an at-home mom after Sophie was born and I'm not liking it now. Less stressful not working? I think not.

Is it really so wrong that I wanted to do some sewing today? REALLY?!

I guess I'll just investigate the thud and crying that is coming from the basement.

Band Camp & Grandpa Peterson's Funeral

It's been a week! A rather long one. Band camp started at 7:00 last Monday morning and ran through 6:00 Thursday night. It was long, hot, mosquito-y, wet and extremely productive. The band has 2 1/3 of the songs on the field and the guard knows almost all of their choreography. A lot of my time was spent sitting under the canopy feedibg the twins who were with me or adjusting the mosquito netting that was over the pack n play. A couple days there were band moms there who were more than happy to hold and take care of the babies between feedings so I could work. The big girls got to go to Tia's and much preferred their play time and rest time there to being at band.

Monday was a somewhat difficult day. Craig's grandpa Paul Robert (Bob) Peterson died last Thursday morning and his funeral was Monday morning. Grandpa was a ball turret gunner in B24s in WWII. He's shared some incredible stories about his time in the Air Force. The service was lovely. Lots of happy memories were shared, the great grand kids (37 as of the twins birth) who were old enough sang "Families Can Be Together Forever", Craig's dad sang a nice song called "Goin Home" (to the tune of Kyrie), Joyce spoke about her dad, his integrity, leading & teaching by example, the plan of salvation and how many people he touched in his 91 years.

We talked to Sophie & Olivia about great grandpa since they knew and visited them. We chose to talk about it as a happy time and were honest/open. Olivia is still so young she didn't seem to understand much but Sophie grasped much more. She had lots of good questions that made us both have to stop and really think. In the end, we let her decide if she wanted to go to the funeral. She wanted to go with us so we used the hand & glove analogy (body-spirit) and she seemed to "get" it.  At the cemetery, grandpa was honored with a presentation by the American Legion Honor Guard. Flags lined the path, flag folding and presentation to grandma Peterson, 3 shots fired and taps played by two buglers. One of the adult children had requested that the family be able to fill the site by hand rather than with the dump truck. It seemed therapeutic for several of the people involved. I'm so thankful that death isn't permanent and doesn't have to be a final goodbye. The separation is sad but knowing we get to see the people we care about again is one of those comforting things that helps life be easier to live.

August 2, 2014

A New List

In the last couple weeks, I've been trying to get into a routine that fits my personality and gets the "daily musts" done. I have a list of 9 things (empty trash in bathrooms & diaper can, collect & run a load of laundry, school time, read a book with girls, exercise for at least 5 minutes, baby activity time,   wash the baby dishes, run & empty the dishwasher, spend some quiet time reading scriptures or the ensign) but during my early morning baby feedibg, I read an article in the ensign about the importance of journaling. So, another item is now added to my list!


I love having my list and get a lot of satisfaction out of accomplishing the things on my list every day. I'm able to get almost everything done by the time the big girls are done with breakfast, too, which then gives me the sense of freedom my anxiety-girl self needs to enjoy the day. That 10th item that was added this morning as a result of my private reading time- journaling- sort of stressed me out a bit. With the time demands with caring for twin newborns, 2 & 3 year old big girls, I kind of felt trapped. I rarely even pull out my laptop anymore unless I'm doing a specific project or paying bills. I do, however, seem to spend a good chunk of time on my phone keeping in contact with friends who've moved or work long hours, reading articles, sending emails for work etc. while I'm feeding the babies. A comment by elder Uchtdorf regarding the good in technology gave me an "ah ha!" moment and a clear idea of a way for me to be able to keep my own version of a journal without having to change my habits: use one feeding time a day to type a few lines- using my accessible phone!- in my "journal." I'm glad I got going on my list and read that this morning, early as it was, and got that little prompting/nudge and a way to follow through without having to "run faster."